WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS Movie Review

Onna Ga Kaidan O Agaru Toki

Keiko (Hideko Takamine) is a young widow forced to work as a bar hostess in order to support her mother and lazy brother. As she approaches age 30, Keiko comes to realize that her relationships with the men who frequent the bar—some of them married—are leading nowhere. Yet asserting her independence by opening her own bar will prove to be a daunting task. Mikio Naruse was one of the Japanese filmmakers who, like Mizoguchi and Ozu, was interested in—and highly sensitive to—the plight of women in Japanese society. Naruse's films never received significant distribution in the West, however, though a few are available. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs isn't considered to be among his finest work, yet it's still a fascinating melodrama with a bitter, memorable aftertaste. Handsomely photographed in a widescreen process, it should be seen in a letterboxed version if at all possible.

NEXT STOP … Sounds from the Mountains, Floating Cloud, Sandokan 8

1960 110m/B JP Hideko Takamine, Tatsuya Nakadai, Masayuki Mori; D: Mikio Naruse. VHS WAC